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The Pew Research findings released Wednesday came from a selection of questions asked to more than 3,000 Chinese people earlier this year.

China has been locked in a long-running dispute with countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia over territorial claims in the South China Sea. The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled against China's claim to nearly all of the area in July. [READ MORE]

The conventional wisdom in recent years has been that the United States, reeling from loss of prestige after the Iraq invasion and awash in the foreign policy uncertainty that it created, is overextended and exhausted and now fated to watch impotently as China takes its place.

The thesis of American decline, first developed in the 1970s after the United States lost the Vietnam War, was back in vogue. America was not only fading but unable to prevent the arrival of a new Chinese superpower ready and eager to assume pre-eminence and leadership in a region dominated by the United States since the end of the Second World War. [READ MORE]

In the waning days of the Obama administration, the worm may be turning regarding the US military’s welcome in Asia. Indeed, the Obama foreign policy brain trust may be underestimating China’s diplomatic leverage and skill, and overestimating its own.

The current trends are not auspicious for the US. Indeed, we may be seeing a slow but sure seismic shift in US political standing in the region. [READ MORE]

It is early days, granted, but the Philippines' crude and crass new president Rodrigo Duterte appears increasingly intent on reversing his predecessor's plucky South China Sea policy and pro-Alliance leanings, opting instead for a tilt towards China.

The Philippines' proclivity to flip-flop in its great power relations reflects various factors. One is the absence of a strategic tradition. [READ MORE]

Drawing on the history of the Cold War and the success of containment against the Soviet Union, the University of Chicago’s John Mearsheimer and Harvard University’s Stephen Walt argue that the United States will have no choice but to adopt the strategy of containment against China.

Preventing the rise of a peer competitor, in Mearsheimer’s view, is a vital strategic interest. He believes it would be wise for the United States to hem in China now, while the balance of power is so greatly in America’s favor. [READ MORE]

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte met Vietnam's top leadership on Thursday, aiming to advance a burgeoning alliance that could become increasingly uncertain amid his defiance of the United States and overtures towards China.

Vietnam and the Philippines have drawn closer as China asserts more vigorously its claims of sovereignty in the South China Sea, but Duterte's almost daily jibes against the United States and his positive rhetoric about China may not sit well with Vietnam's leaders and their quieter, more calibrated diplomacy.